Break Away's Garage: Almond Freikers Arrive in Key West, Florida !

It took only a couple of weeks for the Almond Freikers to snake their way down the eastern seaboard and arrive in Key West, Florida. These kids are determined ! This week is also special because we have our first 3 Spots pizza awards winners!

Almond Freiker Stats For Week 8 !

Almond Elementary remains the #1 Freiker school in the US.
Over 3,700 round trips
About 5,600 total miles traveled.
Almond averaged 103 round trips / day for week 8.
280,000 calories burned
1.9 Tons of CO2 emissions prevented

Almond Freikers Arrive in Key West, Florida !

Key West is known as the southernmost city in the Continental United States. It is also the southern terminus of U.S. 1, State Road A1A, and the East Coast Greenway.

Key West is 129 miles (207 km) southwest (229.9 degrees) of Miami, Florida, (about 160 driving miles) and 106 miles (170 km) north-northeast (21.2 degrees) of Havana, Cuba. Cuba, at its closest point, is 94 statute (81 nautical) miles south.

Key West is a seaport destination for many passenger cruise ships. The Key West International Airport provides airline service. Hotels and guest houses are available for lodging.

Naval Air Station Key West is an important year round training site for naval aviation due to the superb weather conditions. It is also a reason the city was chosen as the Winter White House of President Harry S. Truman.

The central business district primarily comprises Duval Street, and includes much of the northwest corner of the island along Whitehead, Simonton, Front, Greene, Caroline, and Eaton Streets and Truman Avenue.

The official city motto is "One Human Family."

In Pre-Columbian times Key West was inhabited by the Calusa people. The first European to visit was Juan Ponce de León in 1521. As Florida became a Spanish colony, a fishing and salvage village with a small garrison was established here.

In 1815 the Spanish governor in Havana, Cuba, deeded the island of Key West to Juan Pablo Salas, an officer of the Royal Spanish Navy Artillery posted in Saint Augustine, Florida. After Florida was transferred to the United States, Salas was so eager to sell the island that he sold it twice - first for a sloop valued at $575, and then to a U.S. businessman John W. Simonton, during a meeting in a Havana café, for the equivalent of $2,000 in pesos in 1821. The sloop trader quickly sold the island to a General John Geddes, a former governor of South Carolina, who tried in vain to secure his rights to the property before Simonton, with the aid of some influential friends in Washington, was able to gain clear title to the island. Simonton had wide-ranging business interests in Mobile, Alabama. He bought the island because a friend, John Whitehead, had drawn his attention to the opportunities presented by the island's strategic location. John Whitehead had been stranded in Key West after a shipwreck in 1819 and he had been impressed by the potential offered by the deep harbor of the island. The island was indeed considered the "Gibraltar of the West" because of its strategic location on the 90-mile (140 km)–wide deep shipping lane, the Straits of Florida, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. On March 25, 1822, Matthew C. Perry sailed the schooner Shark to Key West and planted the U.S. flag, physically claiming the Keys as United States property. Perry reported on piracy problems in the Caribbean. Perry renamed Cayo Hueso (Key West) to "Thompson's Island" for the Secretary of the Navy, Smith Thompson, and the harbor "Port Rodgers" for War of 1812 hero John Rodgers. Neither name was to stick. In 1823 Commodore David Porter of the United States Navy West Indies Anti-Pirate Squadron took charge of Key West, which he ruled (but, according to some, exceeding his authority) as military dictator under martial law.

Numerous artists and writers have passed through Key West, but the two most associated with the island are Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms while living above the showroom of a Key West Ford dealership at 314 Simonton Street. During his stay he wrote or worked on Death in the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. He used Depression-era Key West as the locale for To Have and Have Not — his only novel set in the United States.

Tennessee Williams first became a regular visitor to Key West in 1941 and is said to have written the first draft of A Streetcar Named Desire while staying in 1947 at the La Concha Hotel. He bought a permanent house in 1949 and listed Key West as his primary residence until his death in 1983. In contrast to Hemingway's grand house in Old Town, the Williams home at 1431 Duncan Street in the "unfashionable" New Town neighborhood is a very modest bungalow. The house is privately owned and not open to the public. The Academy Award–winning film version of his play The Rose Tattoo was shot on the island in 1956. The Tennessee Williams Theatre is located on the campus of Florida Keys Community College on Stock Island. Williams had a series of rented homes all over the U.S., but the only home he owned was in Key West.

Bike To Work Week Is Over !

You can all come out now - it's over. I didn't hear much chatter regarding anyone's trips to work on their bikes this week. Hhhhhmmmmm... it makes me wonder.... If you are just being bashful and really did ride to work 1 or 2 days, let us know - I'd like to hear how it went... Otherwise, I'm telling the kids at the Monday assembly that you guys are a bunch of slackers!

So, the $5.00 question... "Do I owe anyone out there a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cone?" Remember, you had to ride to and from work every day last week - that's pretty easy don't you think? I would have biked to work... but then again, I don't have a job :)

Freiker Is On The Roll Again !

We have a couple of rides coming up - I hope that you and your kids can make it. It is open to all students at Almond School (and their families). We will meet on the Almond School playground at the specified time for each ride:

May 24th @ 1:00pm - Freiker Rolls to Egan: If you have a 6th grader who will be attending Egan next year, this is the perfect opportunity. We'll leave from Almond School, learn some clever ways to get to Egan on a bike. We'll figure out where the bike racks are and we'll even swing by Baskin-Robbins in downtown Los Altos on the way home. Bring your free coupons! Every one is welcome to join - students and parents alike. Approx 6 miles.
May 31st @ 10:30am - Freiker Rolls to Redwood Grove. Bring a picnic lunch with you (a backpack works fine) and we'll take a nature walk around Redwood Grove. We'll also hang out in the shade of Shoop Park while the kids burn off some extra energy. Approx 5 miles.
June 7th @ 1:00pm - Freiker Rolls to Foothill College: Foothill College is a nearby junior college nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. But how many of you have actually been there? We'll take a lap around the campus and head back through downtown Los Altos for some refreshments. Approx 8 miles.
June 14th @ 1:00pm - Freiker Rolls to Hidden Villa: Tucked back in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Hidden Villa is a great place for a kid to spend some time interacting with nature, taking a walk and learning about environmental conservation. Fun for the whole family! I'll need a couple of adult volunteers on this one to help escort the group along Moody Rd. Approx 12 miles.

Our Camping Trip !

Dale and I went to The Pinnacles National Monument this weekend. If you have never been there it is really pretty spectacular - but pick your weekend carefully. While we did the 11 mile hike to the Balcony Caves area, it was over 100F and there are more different kinds of bugs there including lady bug larva everywhere in the campgrounds. You pretty much can't sit down without squishing one *and* having a dozen crawling on you within 3 minutes. Dale and I both have a pretty impressive collection of mosquito bites...